Obama pressures Hill on tax cuts

President Barack Obama got back into the public fight over the payroll tax cut extension Tuesday — and once again targeted Congress as the obstacle to progress.

“Washington shouldn’t hike taxes on working Americans right now, that’s the wrong thing to do. But that’s exactly what’s going to happen at the end of this month … if Congress doesn’t do something about it,” Obama said in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

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With just more than two weeks until the expiration of the current extension of the tax cut deal that was struck when Obama successfully politically maneuvered around House Republicans late last year — as well as extensions of jobless benefits and higher pay rates for physicians who accept Medicare — the president is looking to get the popular support behind him again.

House Republican leaders have put forward a proposal to extend the tax cut through the end of the year without clear ties to revenues, but the full caucus won’t discuss the plan until later Tuesday. Even if the House GOP agrees to the tax cut extension, they could still put up a fight on extending unemployment benefits and Medicare payments.

With about a dozen ordinary Americans standing behind him, Obama offered an appeal to economic fairness, saying the extension is one piece aimed to “restore an economy where everybody gets a fair shot and everybody is doing their fair share and playing by the same set of rules.”

Earlier Tuesday, the White House released a video of the president urging Americans to write on the White House website or on Twitter how the tax cut benefits them. The administration says that if the tax cut were not extended, 160 million Americans would lose an average of $40 from each paycheck.

They’re using the same playbook from the December showdown over the extension, when the White House encouraged Americans to write in to explain how important $40 could be in their lives, and the hashtag #40dollars trended on Twitter.

“Last December, when we had this fight, your voices made all the difference,” Obama said Tuesday. “Until you see that photograph of me signing it at my desk — make sure it’s verified, certified, if it’s not on the White House website, it hasn’t happened — I’m going to need to make sure your voices are heard.”